Appeals of ex parte examination Refusals

A reader emailed me to ask if CIPO’s trademark .xml data can be mined to determine how often applicants appeal or seek judicial review of prosecution refusals.  The answer is a qualified yes.

Section 56(1) of the Trademarks Act, RSC 1985, c. T-13 provides that “An appeal lies to the Federal Court from any decision of the Registrar under this Act...”  One such decision is a refusal by CIPO to register a trademark.

There are 2 broad categories of refusals: (1) a refusal issued during ex parte examination before the application is approved for publication in the Trademarks Journal; and (2) a refusal issued in consequence of a successful inter partes opposition after publication of the application in the Journal.  The reader’s question pertains to ex parte examination refusals.

The question is timely in view of CIPO’s recent indication that its efforts to reduce the backlog of unexamined applications may necessitate an increase in ex parte examination refusals (see CIPO Addresses the Backlog).

Appendix G in Version 2.2 of CIPO’s Trademarks Data Dictionary (dated 22-May-2019) lists almost 200 different prosecution events.  These are the events listed in the Action History section of records retrieved via CIPO’s online trademark database.  You can’t search Action History events via the online database, but you can search them by working with the .xml data, as explained in Prosecution Events.

Appendix G sets out 2 events of potential interest:

• 09 Refused: The application for the registration of a proposed trademark has been refused by the Registrar of trade-marks.
• 172 Federal Court Proceeding Initiated: This action indicates that a Federal Court Proceeding has been initiated.

A search of a data warehouse containing details of all 1,813,116 marks on the Canadian trademarks register (as of 13-Sep-2021) reveals only one mark whose prosecution event history includes both of event codes 09 and 172: application no. 1689088.  A portion of that application’s online database Action History appears below, with those two events highlighted (click to enlarge the image).

The Federal Court proceeding pertaining to application no. 1689088 culminated in Obsidian Group Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), 2020 FC 586 (CanLII) in which Madam Justice Fuhrer dismissed an appeal of the Registrar’s refusal of application No. 1689088.  (The refusal was based on alleged confusion with a previously registered trademark, thus fitting within the ex parte refusals category mentioned above).

Unsuccessful applicants rarely initiate Federal Court proceedings in an effort to overturn ex parte examination refusals of pending trademark applications¹.  However, Canadian trademark practitioners know that there has been more than one such proceeding.  It is accordingly apparent that the above search strategy does not answer the reader’s question.  A different strategy is required.

A search for marks having event code 172 “Federal Court Proceeding Initiated”, without regard to any other codes, yields 43 marks.  The dates associated with those 43 “Federal Court Proceeding Initiated” events range from 08-Aug-2019 to 31-Aug-2021.  However, with the exception of the aforementioned application no. 1689088, those events pertain to post-registration inter partes expungement proceedings or to appeals arising from inter partes opposition proceedings.  So, search strategies focused on event code 172 “Federal Court Proceeding Initiated” will not answer the reader’s question regarding appeals of ex parte examination refusals.

Another strategy is to search for marks having event code 165 “Appeal in Progress” but not having event code 70 “Opposed” (i.e. to filter out inter partes opposition appeals and maintain focus on the reader’s question regarding appeals of ex parte refusals).  This yields 23 marks as tabulated below.  The results in the “Serial No.” column are hyperlinked to CIPO’s online trademark database.  The “FCC / CanLII” column reflects further research conducted via the Federal Court of Canada's Court Files tool and via the CanLII databases.  Decisions reported in the CanLII databases are hyperlinked via their neutral citations.  The FCC’s Court Files tool can be used to inspect the court files listed below.

Serial No.	Filed	CIPO Status	FCC / CanLII
1689088	11-Aug-2014	Refused	appeal dismissed 05-May-2020: 2020 FC 586
1538407	28-Jul-2011	Refused	T-396-16 (discontinued 04-Apr-2016)
1520337	16-Mar-2011	Refused	T-1786-14 (discontinued 26-Mar-2015)
1485246	15-Jun-2010	Refused	appeal dismissed 06-Mar-2018: 2018 FC 258
1484568	10-Jun-2010	Refused	T-127-12 (appeal dismissed 09-Nov-2012)
1483799	4-Jun-2010	Refused	appeal dismissed 06-Mar-2015: 2015 FC 284
1459921	20-Nov-2009	Registered	appeal allowed 08-Jul-2014: 2014 FC 664
1345342	27-Apr-2007	Refused	application for judicial review dismissed 10-May-2012: 2012 FC 564
1343297	16-Apr-2007	Refused	T-931-10 (discontinued as of 26-Aug-2015 ?)
1310406	14-Jul-2006	Refused	T-540-09 (discontinued 12-Aug-2009)
1306243	21-Jun-2006	Refused	T-1914-16 (discontinued 21-Dec-2016)
1277334	18-Oct-2005	Refused	appeal dismissed 20-Sep-2011: 2010 FC 1296; 2011 FCA 261
1214080	21-Apr-2004	Refused	T-1608-13 (discontinued 31-Mar-2014)
1212296	6-Apr-2004	Refused	T-1606-13 (discontinued 31-Mar-2014)
1212298	6-Apr-2004	Refused	T-1609-13 (discontinued 31-Mar-2014)
1152493	11-Sep-2002	Refused	T-529-09 (discontinued 12-Aug-2009)
1152495	11-Sep-2002	Refused	T-525-09 (discontinued 12-Aug-2009)
1152496	11-Sep-2002	Refused	T-521-09 (discontinued 12-Aug-2009)
1152497	11-Sep-2002	Refused	T-523-09 (discontinued 12-Aug-2009)
1144430	20-Jun-2002	Refused	appeal dismissed 18-Jan-2011: 2011 FC 58; 2012 FCA 60
1111345	31-Jul-2001	Refused	T-2166-12 (discontinued  21-Jan-2013)
883319	3-Jul-1998	Refused	T-1257-12 (discontinued 12-Jul-2013)
714314	6-Oct-1992	Registered	T-1650-10 (appeal allowed 01-Mar-2012)

The foregoing list is not exhaustive.  See for example Warnaco Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), (2000) 5 CPR (4th) 129 (FCTD) in which the applicant appealed an examiner’s ex parte refusal, on descriptiveness grounds, of application no. 773252 to register SATIN STRIPES as a trademark for intimate apparel, namely bras and panties.  However, CIPO’s Action History for the application (which corresponds to the data in CIPO’s trademark .xml file for the same application) provides no indication that the applicant appealed the examiner’s refusal to the Federal Court.  The Action History includes a 1999-03-16 “Refusal Letter Sent” prosecution event and a 2001-05-08 “Refused” event, but the intervening events are unrelated to the appeal proceedings, e.g. changes of title and agent.  

CIPO’s Action History for each of the applications bulleted below similarly provides no indication that the applicants appealed the ex parte examination refusals of those applications to the Federal Court:

• Neptune S.A. v. Canada (Attorney General), 2003 FCT 715 [dismissing applicant’s appeal of examiner’s ex parte refusal of application no. 869674]
• Supershuttle International Inc. v. Canada (Registrar of Trade-Marks), 2002 FCT 426 [allowing applicant’s appeal of examiner’s ex parte refusal of application no. 777875]
• A. Lassonde Inc. v. Canada (Registrar of Trade-Marks), 2000 CanLII 14750 (FC) [dismissing applicant’s appeal of examiner’s ex parte refusal of application no. 836143]
• Reed Stenhouse Co. v. Canada (Registrar of Trade-Marks) (1992) 45 CPR (3d) 79 (FCTD) [allowing applicant’s appeal of examiner’s ex parte refusal of application 637434]
• Canadian Parking Equipment Ltd. v. Registrar of Trade Marks, (1990) 34 C.P.R. (3d) 154 (FCTD) [allowing applicant’s appeal of examiner’s ex parte refusal of application 499953]

I have also listed below a few older appeals—all dismissed—of ex parte trademark examination refusals.  These are not reflected in CIPO’s online trademark database, or in the trademark .xml data which excludes details of applications abandoned or refused prior to 1980.

• Registrar of Trade Marks v. Coles Book Stores Ltd., 1972 CanLII 176 (SCC), [1974] SCR 438, (1972) 4 C.P.R. (2d)
• Food Machinery Corp. v. Registrar of Trade Marks, 1946 CanLII 287 (Ex. Ct.), [1946] 2 DLR 258, [1946] Ex CR 266, (1946) 5 CPR 76
• Sherwin Williams Co. v. Commissioner of Patents, 1937 CanLII 279 (Ex. Ct.), [1938] 1 DLR 318, [1937] Ex CR 205

In conclusion, CIPO’s trademark .xml data can be mined to reveal appeals of ex parte refusals initiated since about 2000, but not all such appeals are reflected in the data, e.g. Warnaco, Neptune, Supershuttle, Lassonde.

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1 ex parte examination refusals are also rare—as of 13-Sep-2021 CIPO has issued only one dozen such refusals since CIF (17-June-2019).^↩